tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39867685141430175232017-12-13T17:41:20.797-08:00disorderly wanderlustopinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.comBlogger361125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-46993240490260858122017-02-01T18:58:00.001-08:002017-02-01T18:58:38.843-08:00defeatedDefeated.<br /><br />Not "Oh i lost a softball game" defeated.<br /><br />The world is over, I want lots of wine and a dark cave to escape the world; or a reset button defeated. Yeah.<br /><br />Nope that's the depression talking, but i still feel utterly defeated, depression or not.<br /><br />Recently, my son told his teacher he'd punch her, because he wanted to stay on the playground.<br />He pulled a baby girl's hair.<br />He told his friend that his (the friend's) sister was stupid, which really hurt his friend.<br /><br />Let me back up.<br /><br />Bit over a &nbsp;year ago.<br /><br />A girl at my son's school loved to shoot dirty glances or a stuck-out tongue his way, quiet mean whispers when no one was looking, etc. She caused him to fear school.<br /><br />Not that my son is innocent. He can be mean. Real mean. But he must have a reason, an instigation.<br /><br />Now, another girl called him naughty and told him "no boys allowed" so he decided all girls were evil, stupid, mean.<br /><br />He got fixated on it. He is great at fixating on things, like a bulldog, for better or worse.<br /><br />He pees himself thinking about her and is convinced she will kill him. He is full of fear, the poor thing. So he decides vengeance and harm is the answer, at least in his mind.<br /><br />So he hates girls. He pulls their hair. He tells them they're stupid.<br /><br />He is a whirlwind of activity and movement and emotion, an uncontrollable tornado at all times.<br /><br />But he is sweet. When his brother loses a toy, he draws him a new toy. He writes love notes. He chases me down to give me kisses. He tells everyone how much he loves his pets. He says he wants to marry me.<br /><br />He is a gentle but volatile soul.<br /><br />So I thought why not seek therapy for him?<br /><br />So the mental health dept put me on hold. For an hour. Hello, do not put people with mental illness on hold for an hour! That could be a life or death situation! Luckily it was not for us.<br /><br />Wait, back up, again. A year ago, I call for therapy. I'm told I can get it for him, but only one hour away. Only in the morning. I have a medical issue where my driving is restricted, so if the weather is bad I cannot drive. So my husband drives, but he works in the morning. Also they said I cannot bring my youngest son. There is literally one babysitter within thirty minutes and I wouldn't trust her with a cockroach. Really, no babysitters. I had to quit a Bible study cause of it.<br /><br />Anyways so I couldn't get therapy then.<br />I finally find one locally and my insurance has loosened up their...whatevers....so I can go locally.<br /><br />Except she isn't taking patients. I'm on a waiting list.<br /><br />So my mommy and me group calls today. "We can't....uh...handle a child like him. There are moms afraid for their safety."<br /><br />Shit. Really.<br /><br />I want to get him help. But I can't. I've had him tested for like....every mental or whatever issue and everyone just says oh he's borderline/at risk, sorry, we can't help. I'm quite sure he has anxiety and Sensory issues but his anxiety is "borderline" and sensory only comes with an autism diagnosis which three different places have "tried" and he gives eye contact, the first assessment question, so they don't continue with the assessment. No autism cause he looks you in the eye.<br /><br />So I'm stuck.<br /><br />I feel defeated. Like I'm a bad mom. And no one can help. All I want is to help my little boy and all I get is judgement, exile, evil looks, criticism.<br /><br /><br /><br />opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-9703432789208502612016-11-07T12:33:00.000-08:002016-11-07T12:33:17.468-08:00La$ Vega$Welcome to Lost Vegas...land of the lost.<br /><br />Begin rambling rant....go!<br /><br />I admit it. I hate Vegas. I always have. I thought I only hated it as a kid, because back in the 80s and 90s we'd stay way off the strip in sketchy trucker motels, or if we were lucky, in the claustrophobic outdated rooms at the Oriental, where my family would sit and chain smoke and drink and chain smoke and drink. Vegas was not kid-friendly back then. I still feel like it isn't anyone-normal-friendly or kid friendly today.<br /><br />I don't gamble. I don't smoke. Sure, I drink, but mostly the beer I brewed myself. Spending $7.50 plus tax for a budweiser is highway robbery, disgusting piss-water highway robbery. Anyways, I also don't like shopping much and can visit the same corporate clothing stores near home. I don't "watch the shows" especially when they cost upwards and over $100 a person. I don't like the stuffy rooms that set off my asthma. I HATE crowds. Spending more than ten minutes in the loud, smoky, blink casino gives me a migraine or at the very least mimics a migraine in effect. Oh, and all elevators give me vertigo that lasts from a few minutes to a day afterwards, so I feel like I am nearly-blackout-drunk, without any of the fun parts.<br /><br />Yep. I hate Vegas.<br /><br />I was walking through the casino to get much needed and overpriced nasty coffee ($4.25 for a small, bitter, plain-old-drip coffee at Starbucks) and saw just...sadness. To end a rant I'm about to begin, I saw Soon and Gomorrah. Sometimes if I see some stranger with tears in her eyes, some angry old man, whatever, I silently pray for them. My prayers couldn't keep up.<br /><br /><br />And I am STARVED.<br /><br />I can't eat gluten (not a fad-diet but a bonafide allergy) and have now recently become corn-sensitive, and am allergic to monosodium glutamate.....geez I'm not even a hypochondriac but I sure sound like one...so it is difficult to eat in Vegas. One would think, oh, gluten-free is trendy! Hell, Paleo is all the rage too, so there's going to be plenty to eat...right?!?!<br /><br />Wrong.<br /><br />Yesterday for lunch I had some chips and jerky as we were on the road and well, I can't eat much of anything fast-food-y. We didn't eat dinner until 9:30 and so I was famished. We went to the food court where it was like, nope, can't eat that. Nope, can't eat that. So I ordered a $7.50 crappy beer to cry into, while my kids chowed down on pizza. I then thought hey that hot dog place has chili cheese fries, sweet! But the chili had wheat in it. So I got cheesy bacon fries (and a hot dog, plain fries , drink for my husband). $36 flipping dollars later, I sit down to eat my fries and realize it isn't cheese on my fries. It is cheese sauce. Cheese sauce, especially the processed goopy stuff, generally has both wheat and msg. And it isn't a pick-around-it sauce, it is all over. I am about ready to have a tantrum. Like, a I'm in my terrible twos and will flail on the ground, fists pounding, hollering tantrum because I just spent $36 and al I can do is eat my husband's french fries. Sure, it was food, but after spending way too much on food, eating a plate of fries. Only fries. Was disappointing, and the fries were those freezer-burn, meal-y type fries that I choked down out of starvation.<br /><br />So today I was like dammit, I WILL EAT. My husband went to the drug store and got me some hummus and gluten/corn free crackers for me, fruit and yogurt for us to all share, lunchables for the kids. This would sit in the cooler with fresh ice until, well, probably the road-trip home.<br /><br />Nope.<br /><br />I looked at the restaurants in the hotel and saw Pieology! OMG my day was made, no, my week! I could buy like 3 gluten free pizzas and shove them in the cooler and it would feed the kids and I for a few days, every meal! We love pizza!<br /><br />Nope.<br /><br />The restaurant claims to have yelp reviews and claims to exist but is still being built. This we found out after a long casino trek, and let me tell you I had to drag my kids back to the room because the promised pizza did not exist and they could. not. cope.<br /><br />So I had hummus, which I love, but after 500 calories of hummus (and a want to finish the tub) I gave up and blogged.<br /><br />But not before I looked at room service.<br /><br />SHIT.<br /><br />HIGHWAY ROBBERY.<br /><br />Yes. I'm not an idiot. Room service is always ungodly expensive. But even in a posh hotel in Silicon Valley, I can drop $40 and feed the kiddos and myself...not bad for Silicon Valley and room service.<br /><br />So I browsed the menu but came up with the usual gluten-free option, salad. But hey I like salad. It was a caesar, but I could request no croutons. And hell, chips and salsa, my corn allergy isn't that bad and simply a salad (probably three sprigs of lettuce worth) wouldn't suffice. Oh, and a drink. Coffee! Yes I like coffee! And the kids would want juice. And probably the chicken tenders to share. Ok....get out calculator, add service charge, delivery charge, per-person charge, tip, and tax and...<br /><br />1 coffee<br />2 juices<br />1 order chicken tenders (as in probably 3 tenders)<br />chips and salsa appetizerqa<br />salad w/o croutons<br /><br />would run me....<br /><br />Well let's think of it as if we were home or at the local Mexican restaurant. Chips and salsa are free. Switch chicken tenders for a single kid's meal. $19 plus tax and tip so $23.40<br /><br />Ok back to La$ Vega$.<br /><br />The total for my meal there, for room service is.....<br /><br />$153.92<br /><br />WTF.<br /><br />Vegas is supposed to be cheap!<br /><br />So Then I thought, buffet! Buffets are cheap!<br /><br />Nope.<br /><br />$30 a person including my kids. So $90 plus tax and tip, and some buffets don't include drinks so who knows. $111.50 for the buffet, and I'd have to stop and find an employee at most every item but the fruit and say, excuse me, can you assure me this is msg and wheat free? To which half the people wouldn't know or would just say yes to get rid of me.<br /><br />I thought about walking outside the hotel, but my children do. not. hold. hands. They try, but they are hyper and squirrely and faster than a cheetah. Add in some special needs issues and....Losing my children in the Vegas streets is not a paranoid mom thing, but a distinct possibility.<br /><br />What ever happened to the $10 buffet or $6 prime rib dinners of yesteryear? Heck even three years ago it was cheaper. Not just oh inflation made prices go up over the past three years cheaper, either.<br /><br />Just another reason to hate Vegas, as if I did not have enough.<br /><br />opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-16574444134443623962016-09-10T19:52:00.001-07:002016-09-10T19:52:31.464-07:00Fiction: The HouseIf I could only speak, the words and tales I could tell...<br /><br />I saw the Hispanic men construct my skeleton as my wooden beam bones grew taller and taller towards the sky, and I came into true being, my walls and rooms like life-giving cells. I had dreams of housing a large family, children's happy squeals as they tried to ski on their socks down the hallway, candlelit Thanksgiving feasts full of the aroma of turkey and cinnamon spice. I made friends with the young black oaks as the bent their branches towards me in the cold winter winds.<br /><br />I saw an older couple walk into my doorway, smiling, dreams written all over their faces; paperwork signed and hands shook meant I was whole, complete.<br /><br />Instead, I became a bed and breakfast, which was not my wish but held my interest. Each one of my rooms was decorated in lovely Laura Ashley wallpaper with matching curtains and bedding, I was catalogue-chic. I witnessed honeymooners, movie stars, people in marital trouble trying to rekindle their love. I knew my walls brought them joy, but I still felt hollow.<br /><br />The economy had crashed, a mini recession, blared the big box television next to my grand fireplace. The older couple frowned and held hands, as fewer and fewer guests trickled in. With heavy hearts, they agreed to sell me.<br /><br />Another older couple fell in love with my large grassy yard and winding staircase, and I was theirs and they were mine. I watched the woman as she came home at odd hours from the medical clinic, placing her worn comfortable shoes at the doorway as she collapsed on the couch, her husband having given up and fallen asleep in the master bedroom, alone again. I wished I could wrap my beams around her and tell her she was working miracles and it would all be ok, but it wasn't.<br /><br />A new tv, a flatscreen, again blared on about another recession, military men deployed overseas, fatalistic news on the screen and in the living room as the man served his wife divorce papers and...papers to sell me, the home.<br /><br />I sat, vacant yet hopeful, &nbsp;as people trailed in and out. One of the doctor's secretaries came in and polished my stair rail, wiped down my cloudy windows, dusted my mantle. Her hope and despair matched my own. Summer turned into fall, and winter, spring, and summer again. My paint began to chip, my eaves sagged, people came and went. Someone began to sign paperwork to my elation, only to never return again.<br /><br />Four years passed, so many people but so little...relationships. All I wanted was to be a home.<br /><br />There was a family I kept seeing a few times a year, smiles on like the rest of them, who finally came with a pile of papers, signed. A handshake. A boy running across the hallway in socks. The windowsills were dusted, my walls painted, and a worn Bible sat on my mantle. Friends visited, in fellowship, hands were held in silent prayer. The children brought over friends who tossed beach balls around and who colored my walls.<br /><br />Finally, I was a home. Thank God.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-40575765716842203302016-09-03T16:11:00.002-07:002016-09-03T16:18:43.193-07:00My vagina and I aren't talkingIt's not me, it's you, I told my vagina.<br /><br />Let's first give a disclaimer, because as you can see, I'm gonna talk about my vagina to the strangers of the interwebby world. Why? Well, I feel as a woman that I <i>can't </i>talk about such <i>private</i> stuff so therefore I will. &nbsp;I mean, if I am to be lady like and not talk about taboo items, well part of what makes us uniquely "lady" is our vaginas so they should be the hot topic. Why can people talk about, I dunno, toes, but not vaginas?<br /><br />Wait. Because we are so hush hush about this stuff, and because I was bedridden sick the week of "that part" of health class, I am now thinking, half this stuff I'm about to talk about probably doesn't even revolve around my vagina. It's a blanket term for all that stuff inside that I can't see, ok?<br /><br />I gave my vagina the cold shoulder after years of begging, when she simply refused to listen or even consider listening, for <i>years </i>I tell you. She put me through a lot of heartache, bullying, and self esteem issues solely because she wanted to do things her own way, on her own time and agenda. She caused me to get the term "late bloomer" past the time of being, well, a late bloomer. I know she had a direct hand in making me shop for training bras while my classmates were shopping for prom dresses. I know she just decided to go all punk rock rebel and decide to give me my period finally after we'd not spoken for, like, ever, and then she did it just to piss me off. &nbsp;Trust me, I was pissed off, being the last girl to ever get her period...a month before I started high school, meanwhile my friends had grown-up sized boobs and had their periods since elementary school.<br /><br />But then, she was ok with me. Ok, really, she made up for that puberty-will-never-happen stuff... enough that I ended up without menstrual cramps! Awesome! I even had two perfect pregnancies, with no cravings, no morning sickness, no...nothing that pregnant ladies get. I even had two natural births, under 5 hours a piece, with a quick recovery. Yay team vagina!<br /><br />And then - she decided she'd had enough of this good girl thing. It was just a phase.<br /><br />Two years ago, I got an abnormal pap smear. You never expect that word, abnormal, and so I quickly brushed it off, while secretly worrying. So they sent me in for another pap and more intensive lab work on the scrapings of my innards and....<br /><br />I got the call. "You have HPV." You know, WARTS. In. My. Vagina. My husband didn't have them so who, when, where....?<br /><br />My nonchalant tipsy ditsy college years came back to me, a past I had wanted to forget. I mean, doesn't the Bible kinda say when you're born again you are born anew, you are not your past? Then why the hell was my past coming back full force and then some to haunt me? I wasn't that "bad" in college, only a very few umm, partners, but then one of them... I'm sure he cheated. A lot. Did he give them to me? Was he still out giving out warts for free? He was the worst, and still occasionally haunts my dreams, my soul, heart, and memories, but I had like 99% gotten over how awful that al was and forgiven myself for staying with him as long as I did. And now i'd have a part of his ...his... evil with me, possibly forever. I wasn't, well, one of them, the kind of girl you'd expect to get HPV. I knew women who were like twenty, thirty times more promiscuous and "bad" than I that had got off scott-free.<br /><br />Then I got the call that it was the most aggressive type of HPV, the type that is responsible for 90% of cervical cancer, and to come in for a biopsy.<br /><br />Then I got the biopsy and they said they saw something abnormal, that drasted word again.<br /><br />Then, &nbsp;with my foot broken (amongst about twenty other really crappy things going on in my life and those around me) I wheeled in for a minor surgery to remove the abnormality.<br /><br />It was one stage below cancer, but like as "scary" as can be before it is cancer, which is scary enough. Sure, my vagina hadn't killed me or sent me into the world of cancer, but I was not very happy with her.<br /><br />A year passed, HPV gone, no more abnormalities as of yet, tra la la, a happy life, happy vagina.<br /><br />Until....<br /><br />Since I don't get cramps, I do consider myself lucky, but then you have to wear pantyliners around your time of the month so you don't end up, I dunno, in the middle of the desert, wearing white pants, surrounded by a judging crowd, as your new red stain grows. And let's say my period as always been a little unpredictable, but predictably unpredictable if that makes sense.<br /><br />But just ten days after lovely old aunt flo, I go to the restroom and screech out, "Huh? What the hell" as I huff and puff over to the cabinet for a pad. Maybe it is just a random three second spotting.<br /><br />Nope.<br /><br />It lasts four days.<br /><br />And then, between the fourteen-days ago period began and 38 days afterwards, I've had bleeding for three or more days three times and guess what happened today? Yeah. Oh and I'm mildly anemic so I'm just having a field day, a bloody exhausted field day.<br /><br />So maybe today has a reason. Yesterday I went to my OBGYN because, well, my vagina hates me and he feels around and has a look see (and &nbsp;a pregnancy test and another pap as is routine, yay, with extra days to wait on results due to the holiday) &nbsp;and finds...<br /><br />A polyp. Like a polyp bigger than a pencil eraser. It could be the problem maker, but he isn't too sure, but isn't worried that he isn't too sure. Meanwhile my low BP (I'm usually 116/65) is at 138/75 because I'm a stress case. I was raised in a home where anxiety was our religion, fear our God, so it kinda stuck. I'm thinking, you aren't sure this is the problem? And you just removed a creepy chunk of flesh from me? And I might just bleed some more?<br /><br />So today when I discovered I'd be in pantyliners again (might as well buy stock), I looked down and told my vagina, it's over. Its not me. Nope, it's you.<br /><br /><br />opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-70772228907286047612016-06-20T20:08:00.002-07:002016-06-23T06:36:39.746-07:00Kicked out of the post office (or, alternate title) too hot for meth labsI grew up near where I currently live, at 5,000 feet above sea level in a small mountain town; sounds kind of like South Park doesn't it?<br /><br />So today was hot. Like, record-breaking hot. It was all over the news, internationally, with highs an hour away (deep down in the desert) of 125 degrees!<br /><br />Here it was a nice "cool" 100. Record-breaking still.<br /><br />I remember back when I was about twelve years old and it was a record-breaking 96. People might foo-foo it, but where we live, few have air conditioning. Even most stores, schools, etc lack air conditioning, so 96 is HOT.<br /><br />My little town lacked a/c anywhere except the post office. I recall sitting in front of the family fan (we were kind of poor so we had one box fan we crowded around and one small clip-on fan) just melting in place, waiting for a friend to come over. My parents gave us five bucks to go check the mail and so we did and "OMG" it was wonderful! The post office had air conditioning! The only place in town! So we hung out for two hours, bored as hell but cooled off, until we got kicked out for loitering. pshaw.<br /><br />I also recall roasting in my bedroom, itching from prickly heat rash, wanting for dead every summer, which is why when I bought a home here, I wanted it set for a/c. My childhood bedroom was a loft room, uninsulated, facing west with one tiny window. Most every summer day might reach 85 (most summer says are 75-80) but my room, from 4:00pm until 4:00am, would be 96 degrees no matter what, with a little clip fan to "cool" me. I hated it.<br /><br />So today I enjoyed our air conditioning when it was 100 out.<br /><br />I even more enjoyed it when 3,500 acres caught fire about 30 miles west, with drift smoke and ashes filling my hot mountain air.<br /><br />I remember it was 88 out, at 9:30am, and no breeze- we always have breeze- so it felt sweltering. At noon, 100 degrees, we got a breeze and I thought, phew a breeze but it will bring the fire bugs out. Having evacuated more times than I can recall, well, I hate fires.<br /><br />So I enjoy our central air because my asthma, my husband and son's asthma, does not have to get too bad because our air system has a filter..because the sky is orange, the sun and sky the same eerie color as a partial eclipse, my cars dusty with falling ashes.<br /><br />Oh and there was a smaller fire about five miles away. A meth lab blew up. yep. Same thing happened two summers ago.<br /><br />But anyway, sometimes Los Angeles with bitch and moan, oooooh it's in the 90's we're all going to die (just like they do when it is "freezing" out at 50 degrees) and I'm sorry, LA, but I lack sympathy.<br /><br />Why? Most Angelinos have a/c. Not all; I had a boyfriend in college from out there and no a/c. But yes, most have a/c. to escape 90 degree heat. The few who don't have options. I bet every Angelinos has within a 5 minute drive and in many cases a five minute walk at least one of the following, all with a/c.....<br />1. Library &nbsp;(my town had one, but no a/c)<br />2. Shopping mall<br />3. mega-mart store<br />4. Starbucks, Mc Donalds, some food establishment<br />5. Grocery store (again my town had one but no a/c)<br />6. Official cooling center for those without a/c<br />7. public swimming pool<br />.... the list goes on....<br /><br />What's the list have in common? All those places are within five minutes and have a/c so the Angelinos have an option to go to the mall or library or whatever and cool down for the day.<br /><br />We, the people in my hometown, did not. Even our local swimming holes, creeks, often dried up and the one that didn't was usually filled with naked stoned hippies and drunk teenagers.<br /><br />We had no choice but to swelter.<br /><br />I often begged my parents for even a little window a/c unit. I see them all over town nowadays. I don't know if it was poverty, how windows were made in the 1930s (many homes were built around then), the electrical system or what but in the 80s, no one in my town had those window a/c units. It's like they didn't exist and yet they did. What's up with that?<br /><br />opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-87898021800424521222016-06-08T19:30:00.000-07:002016-06-08T19:30:05.578-07:00Prairie Home Companion; or, Why My Underwear are on DisplayOur dryer finally done broke. (Yes, hick vernacular, you will see why).<br /><br />My mother in law has a spare dryer but it is 102 degrees out where she is at so....<br /><br />I'm drying my clothes on a line.<br /><br />With a husband, myself (duh) and two boys, we have A LOT of laundry. I feel like I am job shadowing Sister Wives.<br /><br />So we have three lines criss-crossing our back yard with our laundry out for all to see, even our underwear.<br /><br />What have I learned from almost two weeks without a dryer?<br /><br />Well, I am indeed curious how my energy bill will fare; how much I will save.<br /><br />It takes time to hang each individual item. Tossing them in the dryer is so much faster and careless.<br /><br />But hanging clothes is kind of...Zen.<br /><br />In a world where it is rush rush rush and now now now- we even get mad if wikipedia takes to long to load..... slowing down and hanging laundry is kind of...nice. You can take a break from kids. You can think to yourself. You can enjoy the sunshine. You realize the time you are spending would've been spent surfing the web or texting or watching tv, things that take up so much time that we don't notice.<br /><br />I don't like the crunchy towels, wrinkled shirts, stiff underwear, but the time taken to hang and take off laundry is quite nice. You should try it. And, you can piss off your passive aggressive weekender neighbors by hanging underwear on the line closest to their windows ;-)opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-99504775449592212016-04-15T10:26:00.003-07:002016-04-15T10:27:54.161-07:00"I can't, I have a migraine"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DEED-0CV3ns/VxEkKUB6CcI/AAAAAAAAA80/mEhq5rrQxHEKoAqssbgJiEu6wl7t9uNugCLcB/s1600/Photo%2Bon%2B1-9-16%2Bat%2B2.39%2BPM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DEED-0CV3ns/VxEkKUB6CcI/AAAAAAAAA80/mEhq5rrQxHEKoAqssbgJiEu6wl7t9uNugCLcB/s320/Photo%2Bon%2B1-9-16%2Bat%2B2.39%2BPM.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is me on a normal day.</td></tr></tbody></table>"I can't, I have a migraine"<br /><br />If you can answer the phone and say this, you probably don't have a migraine.<br /><br />But you could have prodrome or postdrome, the before and after parts of migraines many of us get in addition to the migraine itself.<br /><br />Lucky me, I often get all 3.<br /><br />Not only do I get a migraine so painful that it rivals the moments before transition in childbirth (for those in the know), but I get the prodrome and postdrome.<br /><br />Last night, I felt nauseous, hot and cold, very sleepy yet troubled. Suddenly my midl headache became DEATH. I stumbled upstairs for some advil. The dark was too dark, the light to light, the fan in the bathroom as loud as a jet engine, the water helping my pills down was too watery, my blankets were too in the way..<br /><br />I woke up still nursing the migraine, more advil, a bunch of caffeine, and....<br /><br />postdrome.<br /><br />I am still noise and light sensitive; my pain is gone until something is too bright or loud, which is basically everything today, especially being that I'm a mom of two young boys. The noise is like a ratchet, click click, tightening a sharp drill into my skull.<br /><br />And the dizziness. It feels like I am nearly blackout-drunk, when everything spins in circles.<br /><br />The lethargy, oh, I am so tired, everything is laborious including this blog. I contemplate adult diapers, the bathroom is soooooo far away. I'd sleep but the postdrome won't let me.<br /><br />Its as if I can feel my neurons spazzing.<br /><br />I can't quite explain it in words but here goes.<br /><br />You know how static on a tv looks and sounds? Imagine a faint bit of static in front of your eyes (plus the drunk spinning view). Then add the sound of static, or nails on a chalkboard, how it fills your ears, makes you shudder, recoil. Imagine that while you can't actually <i>hear </i>the static, your body reacts from it, recoiling, ears full.<br /><br />Disordientation. You feel disoriented as if on drugs, but not good drugs... or so I imagine, having never been on drugs. But I'd say its like a "bad trip". You get body dysmorphia, your foot might feel like its here but really it is there, a body part might feel giant and bloated but look tinier than usual.<br /><br />Flu. It feels like the flu, without the coughing, barfing, sniffling. That I got hit by a truck please ust kill me now feeling.<br /><br />Duh. You can't think. Really, I'm lucky to have remembered to put on pants. The milk might be on the stove, dog food in the freezer, car keys in the dryer, I wouldn't be surprised. I barely even know who I am or where I am. Ignorance is not bliss.<br /><br />The ADD. I don't feel well, so its like ok time to catch up on some TV or read a book, right? But I read a sentence and its as if it is in Greek, or like it is tangible, a little cloud of words in front of you that poof! disappear, so you read the sentence again and it vanishes again. You can't follow the plot of a tv show, because the blazing green color of your sock holds your attention, no, your eyes dart to the clock, barely moving, ouch why do my pants give me a headache, where did I put the milk?<br /><br />All you want to do is sleep, but that neuron static keeps you wide awake. Lethargic, dumber than a brick, but deer in headlights level wide awake. gzzt. you feel the electricity pulse through your veins, your heart beat drums loudly.<br /><br />You want to just close your eyes and rest, but you can't.<br /><br />The static lessens about 10% if you focus on something, so staring into space isn't an option, the static gets deafening, but you cannot focus on anything anyways.<br /><br />You feel detached most of all.<br /><br />So to today, just end already. My to do list is increasing, my house looks like a tornado wreck because I cannot keep up with two kids! But I <i>want </i>to do stuff. I'm jonesing to write my book, I have some training to do for a new job, I have a house to clean, garden to water, shopping to do, I have to go to my prior workplace to get some things, I have a bunch of liens to memorize for a play, laundry to fold, friends and family to call.....<br /><br />But I can't. I have <strike>migraine </strike>postdrome.<br /><br />#Icanteven..... <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P1R5f7rAL-E/VxEj0D_e_SI/AAAAAAAAA8s/s_4aoyxcwBkKCrMZoI_iNAvfe3zAwAKFQCLcB/s1600/Photo%2Bon%2B4-15-16%2Bat%2B10.24%2BAM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P1R5f7rAL-E/VxEj0D_e_SI/AAAAAAAAA8s/s_4aoyxcwBkKCrMZoI_iNAvfe3zAwAKFQCLcB/s320/Photo%2Bon%2B4-15-16%2Bat%2B10.24%2BAM.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This. This is an image depicting post-drome. Actually, a migraine looks just the same on my face. I think I age thirty years during one....And btw I'm wearing just as much makeup in both my "normal" and post-drone photo.<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-4516111299216951292016-02-22T13:24:00.000-08:002016-02-22T13:24:00.887-08:00Selfish vs SelflessI had a giant awakening, a lesson in selfishness verses selflessness.<br /><br />I love my job. I work at a small private school, teaching a smorgasbord of subjects for grades 7-12, a jack of all trades. Highlights have included a few students calling me their other mom, dining on a good-as-a-professional-chef-but-made-by-teens meal for Chinese New Year, and being told "thanks for teaching this, how do people live without it", just to name a few highlights. Once my students walk in the door, the day zooms by and I am filled with total, complete, joy. I love my job. Love your job and never work a day in your life, right? I finally found a job with the teaching freedom I desire, along with spiritual growth, and an amazing group of staff and students. I feel....alive. Amazing,<br /><br /><br />Except.....<br /><br />Here's where I go preachy.<br /><br />God gives you lessons and sometimes they are not easy.<br /><br />Selfishness verses selflessness seems easy. I am often far too selfless, but, maybe it is selfless through the guise of selfishness. I do XYZ to help people, because, it brings me joy. It is kind of a selfish thing of pride, where I have pride in helping people. I have pride in my super-awesome job.<br /><br />I feel like God gave me my current job to kind of wake me up after an abysmal few years where I battled major depression, self doubt, and personal and family crises. I believe this job allowed me to think to myself, I'm worthy. I can find joy in things again. It is all good, man...<br /><br />And then...<br /><br />My son is mild special needs, and suddenly showed signs of needing more help, things I won't divulge all the details, but, he needs me. It is a sort of situation where only mom, time, and support can help him, and I can only give that if...<br /><br />If I choose selflessness over selfishness.<br /><br />So I told my boss, find a new teacher. Once you do, I quit. I told her this, of course, through choking tears.<br /><br />Then, somehow, some students found out,so I told them my decision to quelch any rumors. I tried to stay strong, but began to tear up. &nbsp;I will miss my students, staff, job so much. Also, quitting mid year is like career suicide, but, my son comes first. His needs come first.<br /><br />It seems so easy, doesn't it? Put your children first. I have always believed this, but have never had to sacrifice so much, give up so much, make such a "what should I do" decision as this. But I know it is the right decision.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-81005980193074883952016-01-15T09:11:00.000-08:002016-01-17T06:32:04.244-08:00The cartographer's dragonI seem to gravitate towards sci-fi or fantasy geeks, and always have. My friends growing up were the boys playing Magic cards and going to Renaissance Faires, the girls also at the Ren Faire; fantasy and sci-fi novels reigned supreme and still do among some of my friends.<br /><div><br /></div><div>But I have a secret.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not that much into fantasy, Ren Faire, Sci-fi books....&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>But then again, maybe I am. Just in my own unique way.</div><div><br /></div><div>As a child, I loved maps. National Geographic has always been a favorite, and the occasional fold-out map of some far away country was like an origami-folded Christmas gift of sorts. Just like with the Rand McNally Road map my parents carried in the back of the Jeep, or the Thomas Brothers LA County map my grandpa kept in the toolbox (for scoping out rental properties to fix), my fingers and eyes would excitedly trace every hill, river, toll road, and culdesac for hours at end. I would proudly try and twist my tongue to pronounce foreign outposts, memorize street maps of nearby towns, and study facts about the geography of wherever.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I had a large cardboard child's atlas with cartoon icons n the maps (a four foot wide map of the USA with cacti in the west, oil fields near Texas, some very un-pc "Indian" person near Oklahoma.... I would imagine visiting the oil fields, the Indians, the cacti....I used the atlas as a slide, a building block, a place to nap, a table to draw on. I tried to match the bright icons to places on an outdated, rickety globe I found at a yard sale, and I'd dream of visiting places I knew little about: 12,000 tallest peak, 3 million people in the capital, icons for adobe huts..... I'd spin the globe for hours, closing my eyes, tracing my finger and seeing where I'd end up.</div><div><br /></div><div>I even drew my own maps, twisty loops of residential streets complete with imaginary street names, home plots, driveways, and trees.</div><div><br /></div><div>I created thousands upon thousands of little worlds in my minds, some based on reality, some completely fantasy, with made up residents, lives, life stories, adventures, scenic views.</div><div><br /></div><div>This hobby even spilled over into my lifelong hobby of genealogy and postcard collecting, as well as my newer found hobby of: Google Map Street View. I will do as I did with the globe as a child, scrolling waaaay out, closing my eyes, clicking, zooming in. A rugged arctic outcrop in northern Russia, a busy street scene in Bangkok, rusty tractor parts in rural Romania, a caballero and his cows crossing a dusty Argentinian road. Every square inch tells a story I do not know but can only imagine. &nbsp;Layers upon layers of history, of love and conquest, pain, beauty, silence. People come, people go, events of history imperceptibly change the environment. Millions of that-snapshot-that-moment scenes, experienced differently by each observer, never to be experienced again.</div><div><br /></div><div>As an armchair traveler and pretend cartographer, I envelop myself in a fantasy world of wonderment based solely upon an image, a street name, a blank spot on the map.</div><a href="http://yeahwrite.me/moonshine/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/moonshine.png"></a>opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-84584975670796995972015-12-30T19:46:00.000-08:002015-12-30T19:46:21.006-08:00The best gift you can give is a gift you want for yourself?My husband bought me exercise equipment, something I wanted until I was like ouch it hurts. I bought him a smoker, something he wanted until I ended up with free time to play with it. So the best gift is the one you want for yourself, right?<br /><br />Anyways, while I haven't any ancient Pacific Northwest Homesteader relatives, I still feel I'm channeling some hereditary thing because I am loving smoking things. Just like I love (but often fail) to garden.<br /><br />I am not at all a hopeless romantic, but I find some poetic, simplistic, romantic notion in making your own food the old fashioned way- canning, smoking, gardening. I could never live "unplugged" as I enjoy, fear too much, ambient temperatures and would hate to live without heaters and air conditioners, refrigeration, and the like. But nevertheless, slowing down and putting your own effort and love into a food, for example, is rewarding.<br /><br />Heck I'd love to smoke some elk, but, I'm too chicken to actually kill an elk and too squeamish to prepare it for smoking. I guess I should be vegetarian but I much prefer the alienated approach to meat, with styrofoam packages from the butcher counter. However, I do promote hunting over slaughterhouses. I mean, I've been past "cowchwitz" aka Harris Ranch in California where beef cattle sit unshaded in the hot sun atop their own feces, crowded together like sardines, stinking the air for miles and making a very obvious methane cloud. How awful for those poor cows. Bounce, bounce, bounce through the brush, bang you're dead for, say, a deer, is far more humane.<br /><br />My mom disagrees and is refusing to tell us when hunting season is in Oregon cause how could we hunt an animal? Meanwhile she munches down on a shredded beef burrito. Hypocrite.<br /><br />But anyway, just like my 6 hour fennel pork roast and roht kohl cabbage meal, smoking meats is an all day experience with lots of need for patience, lots of room for both oops and omg there's no turning back I screwed up, and some sort of food zen. When you can get a cheeseburger in ten seconds from a drive through, there is a certain joy in, say, brining a salmon for 24 hours, drying it for 4, then smoking it in cold smoke for 8 hours before you get to enjoy it.<br /><br />Part of me wants to live on some ranch or country acreage where I have to hunt and garden for a living, except yeah I enjoy the convenience of the grocery store....sprinkled with my own small (like 100 square foot at most) organic garden of goodies.<br /><br />The simple life.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-9702662590423765392015-12-29T15:06:00.001-08:002015-12-29T15:06:27.422-08:00Misses Clumsy's mad ninja skillsShh....I'm a ninja.<br /><br />Sure, I've sprained my ankle 6 times, and was so clumsy and non-sporty in elementary school that the teachers asked my mom if I should join adaptive P.E. (P.E. for the handicapped childen). But I have mad ninja skills when needed, apparently.<br /><br />I was watching a movie called He Never Died (a graphic dark comic type movie) with an actor, Booboo Stewart in it whose Native American looking appearance reminded me of a dark memory of my past. &nbsp;So.....sigh....here goes.<br /><br />I certainly had my dark days of being a party girl, which most who know me will find quite surprising, but it is true. My group of guy friends and I went to a &nbsp;popular Spring Break &nbsp;destination along a river adjoining a Native American Reservation. Geez this blog post is so dull right now but trust me there's a whammy coming up.<br /><br />So we partied. Too much beer legging makes you have to pee, but the only restrooms they had were the glorified porta-potties where they're holes in the ground with a toilet seat, and I have a not so irrational fear of them because, well, eww. So I did my best to avoid using them but really really had to go. A rather attractive Native American guy had joined our festivities and said he lived nearby, so I naively asked where to go pee in hopes maybe there was a 7-11 in the middle of nowhere, because, beer doesn't equal logic. He motioned to the mesquite bushes by a hill and I was like, screw it, if you gotta go you gotta go, but I still wanted some modesty so I <strike>walked</strike> rolled down the hill a bit before <strike>finding</strike> landing upon a perfectly pokey mesquite bush to pee on, and all that with only minimal lacerations!<br /><br />I limped back to the campsite and probably drank some more. And then, yep, I had to pee some more, but I wasn't in the mood to go tumbling into bushes again so I mustered enough courage to go to the glorified porta-potties.<br /><br />As I excited, a pickup truck of guys began to speed past and slammed on their brakes upon seeing me. I was too drunk to properly pee in the bushes or probably form a coherent sentence, but my spidey sense yelled "DANGER!", but I had nowhere to run between the potties and the truck. I don't recall every specific which is probably for the best, but suddenly there were arms all around me and I was in the back of the truck while some cretin began to undress me. OH HELL NO I thought. I knew where this was headed, but I was stuck, half-naked in the back of a speeding pickup truck.<br /><br />And that's when my ninja skills kicked in. Just like when in high school, my cousin and best friend conspired against me to try and grab me and throw me in the lake at midnight, and little 90 pound weakling me began to kick and thrash mid-air (My best friend to this day will tell you, "she freaking levitated and did kung fu!"), my ninja skills came to power.<br /><br />I somehow got pissed off or frantic enough for my ninja survival skills to kick in enough for me to wrestle myself away from a bunch of frat guys hell-bent on rape, and I did a tuck-and-roll jump out of a moving truck into a dirt road and ran like hell back to camp, screaming "help help".<br /><br />My boyfriend's best friend saw me first, and while I was a dramatic drunk (and he often became my babysitter), he knew somehow this wasn't just me being dramatic and he ran over to me. I explained what had happened through tears, and he vowed to find the %^&amp;* that tried to rape me. We went on a little walk and walked over a ridge to find the guys by a fire pit. I know it was them.<br /><br />Whether for better or worse, my friend put a hot fire poker on the main assailant's arm and told him something to the effect of him keeping his "parts" in his pants and not messing with women, and that hopefully his new scar would forever remind him of his mistake.<br /><br />Phew. After holding in that story for 15 years, it feels good to let it out.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-90506608314296270562015-12-27T16:27:00.001-08:002015-12-27T16:27:28.549-08:00Parasites, or how not to make friends"Well you can't have chicken pox twice", said my doctor, suspiciously eying my welted freak of a body.<div><br /></div><div>Let me back up.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was never the "cool kid", instead being the girl with coke-bottle glasses, pink moon boots, and an oversized army surplus camp jacket, trying to somehow fit in with the other fifth graders.</div><div><br /></div><div>But when we all went to summer camp a week before fifth grade began, I hadn't a clue I would sign and seal my fate as an "untouchable", nor did I know I would have the worst vacation ever (well, until 8th grade, then college, and, well, let's just say most vacations are epically awful).</div><div><br /></div><div>It started when my best friend at the time demanded she get the coveted top bunk, and I was too painfully unassertive to speak up, and then, get this- she hid her Haribo gummy bears. I would eagerly await Christmas for her German Granny to send her a package and share two or three sweet jewels of Haribo with me, and she HID THEM FROM ME. This began the end of our friendship.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, each camp cabin had to design its own flag with endangered animals and I was like (insert nerd snort) I'm all over this, I totally know all about endangered animals; heck I read the entire Audobon Encyclopedia last year. So I chose the three-spines unarmored stickleback, a cute little minnow fish native but endangered to our local streams. But all the girls thought fish were "eeew" and chose a panda bear. Much to my chagrin, not only did they veto my fish, but since I was artistic, they voted me in to be the artist of their dumb panda. In retrospect, I should have dressed up the panda in a stickleback outfit, but I thought of that 25 years too late.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, we had to do square dancing, God's cruel joke on any awkward child, child who cannot dance, shy child, etcetera. Being the last to be chosen for P.E. (always with a groan, do we have to pick her?) I was the last picked for the dance, and told to dance with some other social outcast, a chubby boy who "had a boner, eeew" giggled some popular girl next to me. I wasn't sure what a boner was, but I was cautious and figured it had to do with his clammy hands. It was the longest 3 minute dance ever and right after, I ran to the only telephone to beg through choking tears for my mom to come get me NOW. She declined.</div><div><br /></div><div>And if that wasn't enough...</div><div><br /></div><div>We had a communal shower, and I went in for my prescribed shower time and a gaggle of girls turned at me in horror, screaming "you cannot come in here, oh my gosh eeeeew just look at you!" I looked down near my lady bits to which they were pointing in horror and saw scratched-up bumps and redness which seemed to be spreading. I was banned from the shower for the entire week and told I could only use the toilet at specific times.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>So now I was the nerdy girl with some weird rash who smelled awful. Great.</div><div><br /></div><div>I called my mom again, choking back tears, and this time she came and got me right away when I said "bumpy rash", since my mom and I both have severe allergies that can go from rash to anaphylaxis in minutes.</div><div><br /></div><div>"You can't get chicken pox twice, so it can't be that" &nbsp;mused my doctor, suspiciously eying my welted freak of a body. "Must be scabies. Tell her to stay away form road kill next time" he said, and ushered us out, after handing my mom some kind of stinky salve. Great, now I would smell like antibiotic cream, just what I needed.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Mom, why did he tell me to stay away from road kill? I don't touch road kill", I asked as we walked to the car. "Well, because your dad had scabies once from touching road kill, remember all those scabs he was always scratching" she said; "maybe its from the hide on your sled, or the raven in the freezer" she exclaimed, as if mentioning the weather or some other small-talk idea and not rotting animals around the house.</div><div><br /></div><div>See, my dad collects roadkill. There was indeed a frozen raven snuggling up to the Haagen Dahz, and a rotting buffalo hide stretched across my snow sled by the front door. Totally normal. And I had to beg my dad to shake off the rattle (from a rattlesnake) off the frozen peas so I could make dinner.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's odd how twenty-some years later, you look back in reflection and think, did I really have scabies? So you "ask Dr. Google" (Never go down that path, you will diagnose yourself with too many rare, incurable diseases. Why yes I do feel a little sleepy, OMG I have typhoid fever!) and find out...</div><div><br /></div><div>a) &nbsp; &nbsp;It was totally chicken pox because now research says in rare cases you can get chicken pox twice, take that Doctor Cibelli.</div><div><br /></div><div>b) It wasn't scabies. I am not denying that scabies is little creatures that burrow into your skin and freaking lay eggs. Bug. Eggs. In. Your. Skin. I mean I totally admit I've had dysentery and tapeworm s&nbsp;<a href="http://disorderlywanderlustblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-tale-of-tijuana-tapeworm.html">http://disorderlywanderlustblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-tale-of-tijuana-tapeworm.html</a>&nbsp;but it wasn't scabies because the only symptom I had was creepy bumps, whereas I had all the chickenpox symptoms.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>c) &nbsp; Don't google chicken pox or scabies if you have &nbsp;trypophobia (fear of holes).</div><div><br /></div><div>d) &nbsp; &nbsp;Don't google how to spell trypophobia unless you want to have to drink away the creepy images that burned into your mind all night after having seen it on the computer</div><div><br /></div><div>e) I know why I have trypophobia.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have trypophobia because yes my dad did pick at his scabs but no it wasn't scabies. See, people who snort methamphetamine get side effects (really? Snorting bleach and sudafed has side effects, who knew? And who came up with meth, I mean I'm not going around mixing pills and cleaners and thinking whoa I could totally get high off this, OMG my are my nostrils bleeding). One side effects is you hallucinate that your skin is crawling and the itching is so real in a sense that you scratch holes ingot your body, which then scab over but you think the bugs are still in there and so you scratch the scabs, a never-ending cycle of trypophobia-induced horror.</div><div><br /></div><div>I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-39404335178971832712015-12-26T19:26:00.001-08:002015-12-26T19:26:34.169-08:00Social Anxiety and AwkwardnessSo I decided to get a makeover today.<br /><br />And then un-decided<br /><br />And decided again<br /><br />And un-decided<br /><br />And had a few out loud <strike>arguments </strike>conversations with myself to convince myself to go.<br /><br />Hell. It's my birthday I deserve it.<br /><br /><br />Nope. My husband didn't spoil himself on his birthday, I don't deserve it.<br /><br />Yes you do.<br /><br />Make-up is dumb.<br /><br />Why not look pretty for your birthday?<br /><br />I will look weird. People will stare, like, why is she all dolled up like a weirdo? And they'll give me a bad makeover like when I got married and had a black fuzzy caterpillar unibrow. A waste of $50. Yes. I can spend or save $50. Total waste.<br /><br />------ &nbsp;I forced myself to drive the the salon-----<br /><br />I walked in and it was like a megaplex of makeup. I am a makeup novice so it was like entering a foreign world. I just recently began to put on tinted moisturizer and mascara, folks. In my 30s.<br /><br />I walked towards the salon part, eyeing all the weird things and....<br /><br />Walked promptly into the cash register area for workers only. OMG people are looking at me, I already don't belong here and look like I don't belong here, all makeup off, doe-eyed, afraid, and now I'm where only the employees go. Crap.<br /><br />So i turn around and end up...staring....crazily....at the employees doing people's hair.<br /><br />I think, Hello, I have an appointment...but I don't say that because I don't want to. I'm too scared to. I don't want to disturb them. And besides I should <i>know </i>the whole process for a makeover appointment, so I act like I know what I'm doing. I check my phone, the introvert or socially awkward person's escape hatch, but its a dead zone. No!!! A dead zone! But I pretend like it isn't, you know, to not look weird. Then I decide standing here, staring, looks funny so I walk over to a counter of makeup and pretend like I know what I'm looking at. Some Romanian beauty product for like $50 a bottle. Wow. I don't drink wine this expensive. It says "tester" so I'm like hey I'm just casually browsing and know what I'm doing, here let's sample it. It is for acne cause who isn't socially awkward without acne?!?! Except its like neck acne so I dribble some onto my neck and it smells like vicks vapor-rub. So now I'm thinking OMG I totally don't belong here and I'm too scared to announce my appointment because I don't know how this all works and now I smell like I have the flu.<br /><br />A hairstylist <i>leaves her customer mid-hairstyling </i>to come help me and i'm like sweet Jesus I'm that bad of a case? I haven't any makeup on, my hair is a mess, I smell like the flu, I'm staring at people, I'm going to get kicked out of here or arrested! She asks if I need help (where's the little chaise lounge to sit on and reflect about my problems with depression?) and I explain I have an appointment. &nbsp;"Oh, Heather is busy but will attend to you soon" she says, waving her hand generally at the salon full of employees while I awkwardly state again....who is Heather? Does she look like a Heather? Does she? I mumble out "oh umm...ok I'll just....look at hair product till she is done" and quickly dart to 5 aisles of product. Five aisles! I browse around, catching a glimpse of my haggardly appearance in the mirror and realize my hair looks like I'm Kurt Cobain. I didn't wash it since it was 24 degrees with 50mph winds, and well, it looks as such. So I think, hey I've seen ads for dry shampoo they have to have that here. Except it takes me ten minutes of staring at every item, reading ingredients, going back and forth through the aisles multiple times, to find a dry shampoo and it is a spray version, so I flop my head down. shake out my hair like a wet dog and pssssshhhh spray my hair. Then again. Now I smell like the flu if the flu were flammable. I then realize I need to look inconspicuous so I go over to a different part of the salon and it is a skin care section. I hear two women casually say "yeah this is the best wrinkle cream. Who knew those nasty snails had a virtue? It's all the rage, snail excretions for skin care!"<br /><br />Seriously.<br /><br /><br />Snail excretions....snail trails...on your face. And it probably costs $100 for a teaspoonful. Hell I'd just rather lay in the dirt and let the snails slime over my face for free. Or maybe not. I hurriedly text my husband "celebrities are paying top dollar for snail trails as a beauty treatment" and the stylist calls my name.<br /><br />I've had makeovers before and the stylists often say, "so what do you want", not as a question per se but as a directive. I'm like isn't it obvious I totally have no freaking clue what I need and could probably only identify the item and purpose for 1/1000th of the products here? Just make me look pretty!! Except of course I don't say that.<br /><br />It took 20 minutes to apply eyeliner to my eyes because I couldn't look up and left but down and stretchy, correctly.<br /><br />I felt very out of place. As usual.<br /><br />I did not like my makeup mid-way through but just like my wedding unibrow caterpillar event, I said nothing and faked a smile.<br /><br />Until....<br /><br />Oddly, a real smile came about once the makeover was done. I actually liked the work done. I felt pretty. And not too awkward or clown-like. I felt like maybe I looked, kinda, sorta ok. And I smiled.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-33789246014839456982015-12-22T19:11:00.001-08:002015-12-22T19:16:59.017-08:00I am from the planet ZorbloqI am from the planet Zorbloq. Or maybe just my parents were yet they brainwashed me into living a Zorbloquian childhood. Either way, it took me three decades and a book by Jenny Lawson (the bloggess, check it out she does;t know it but we're soul sisters &nbsp;<a href="http://thebloggess.com/">http://thebloggess.com)</a> to realize perhaps I am from another planet.<br /><br />I should have known in college when I went to my boyfriend's parents' home for dinner and they had a baked chicken, rolls, salad, and rice and afterwards I felt all embarassed and told him in privacy, "You can tell your parents to lay off,; I am not some foreign dignitary, they don't have to prepare a holiday feast for me". That is when he informed me, rather confused, that the night's meal was normal. People normally eat like that and "fend for yourself" night -or merely eating cereal or microwaved peas -not both, that would be a feast- wasn't exactly, well, normal. Crap I'm an English teacher but feel that sentence is incorrectly formatted but I'm clueless on how to fix it. Gaaah!<br /><br />I should have known when I knew more on how to buy drugs than how to hold a conversation with an adult, thanks to my upbringing. Instead of "Wear This, Not That" I needed "say this, not that".<br /><br />I should have known when I told my husband how I used to impress my friends (who then never came over again, mysteriously) after telling my dad to go use gunpowder and blow stuff up tom, as stated, impress my friends. I mean my dad's one-legged schizophrenic homeless meth-head friend thought it was cool, why didn't pigtailed Ashley with all the latest Barbies, whose mommy owned a brand-new Thunderbird, find the use of IEDs as impressive? Geez.<br /><br /><br />For better or worse, I was raised by a bunch of stoned hippies. err...people who used drugs as medicinal drugs. Cause hello waiting to get high until your friends came over is medicinal, I mean, doesn't your friend totally wait till the clubs open Friday night to take her diabetes meds? And your mom certainly waits till she is off work, in the mood, and in need of feeling good before taking statins right?<br /><br />Whoa, a bit of a tangent there, but my parents did claim hot boxing on road trips made me poetic and that when I complained of nausea from the stench, that pot cured nausea and I had it all wrong.<br /><br />But you know, they loved me and did everything for me so its all good. Sorry. I have some bitter edges there. I'm just a little pissed that it took me, an intelligent adult, thirty-some years to realize my childhood was rather unusual and probably damaging and that I was ill-prepared to function in this human, adult world. When my husband says I need to stop acting so naive, like some sixteen year old, I remind him I left my parents at 18 (but summered and weekended with them until I was 22) and so really I did not join society until my twenties, so really, I am about sixteen. Give me a break. (As I storm off and slam the door to my room and blast some music.)<br /><br />But related to that..I went through a major depressive episode about a year ago (fun times!). I am clinically diagnosed with dysthymia (which I constantly mispronounce) which is basically the DSM IV term for "feeling meh and stubby all the time" with occasional maor depressive episodes. See, as I said fun times! Anyways my "episode" was triggered by the epiphany, the coming out of absolute naiveté, that I may have have food, shelter, love, but that put that aside and my childhood had some messed-up, damaging parts. I started to wallow in self pity and memories and it overcame me. I started to struggle to do much of anything, just moping around the house in self-loathing. My poor family had to pick up the pieces.<br /><br />Then I found God. Or He found me. It didn't cure it all. But it helped a bit, like, when my mom taught me to put clear nail polish over a tear in your pantyhose. I mean you can still see the tear, and it might cause you ti rip some hair off your leg when you remove said pantyhose, and more holes may appear, but hey its kinda sorta fixed.<br /><br />There's one song that is my mantra, my jive, whatever you want to call it. It means that all my f***ed up parts and happy parts, the girl who wants to look like a 1950s bombshell girl and yet learn to target shoot, the good little Christian who likes wine and curse words a bit too much, the snuggly kiss mommy of two who wants to take over and change the world career wise, the girl who loves sappy Dido music and heavy metal, the poet and the pick-up truck driving angry chick, is me. I have a sordid past and no one would ever hope to try and label me or explain me and I am quite complex..... wait where am I going here? (See my anxiety has got me overthinking and over explaining things!) I am...me. Everything happens for a reason and makes me, me. So this song makes me go, heck yeah I'm a social reject weirdo awesome super cool crazy sane nice mean punk rock country frumpy nerd girl. And it is ok.<br /><br />I would embed the video to automatically play if I were tech savvy enough but I'm not so hey here's a link! click it...or something!&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLZkf6HvO2Q">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLZkf6HvO2Q</a>opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-53741958696159250662015-10-27T19:39:00.000-07:002015-10-27T19:39:24.153-07:00Asthma anticsAsthma sucks.<br />My poor son has been home from school for an entire week, mecascramblint to create lesson plans from wscaratch while my books lay unused in my classroom.<br /><br />Some kinda joke of asthma, think of chunk or whatever his name was from Goonies.... But...it's real, folks, and it can be scary and life threatening.<br /><br />Wednesday, my son okept coughing the asthmatic type of cough so he stayed home with daddy. It got worse as the day progressed and he vomiteed, which can happen when our asthma is bad. In fact, years go when inhalers and their medication (albuterol or similar) did no exist, doctors would use epinephrine and then ipecac to make you barf, often helping clear the airways just a bit.<br /><br />So he, and I, stayed home from work Thursday and we went to the doctors where he got a refill on his inhaler. While waiting for the prescription to fill, my husband went to Sears and my son was going to stay on the car but he had to potty. He went in al excited, yay shopping! And ended up walking slowly like an elderly man before he even got to the restroom. Needless to say we stayed home Friday. We didn't even attend church Sunday.<br /><br />Monday. Was like dangit I am going to work,and he has asthma still but seemed better. Hack. Hack.he started to decline. Ten minutes from wek,he was wheezing and whining and hacking non stop. He had a life-lomg chain smoker voice. We called the doctor, made an appointment for 1.5 hura from then, and he got worse...we thought about the ER but knew the doctor appt would actually happen sooner. He then said his tummy hurt. We pulled over and he barfed again. This meant he felt a bit better but was in no shape for school.<br /><br />The doctor gave him a nebulizer with inhaled albuterol AND steroids. I told him it was a cool dragon smoke machine. He is to have it once nightly for the steroid and as needed for albuterol. He needed the albuterol this morning and yep...I ddi nt make it to work.<br /><br />My work was both understanding and understandably pissed at me.<br /><br />Our truck has a 120 volt so his nebulizer &nbsp;can be plugged into the truck so he will get a treatment tomorrow on the way to school and then at lunch.<br /><br />I want to finish the semester or school year. I have not moved a job so much in a while if ever. I come home al excited about my day and ready for the next.<br /><br />But my son comes first.<br /><br />I don't know what the future holds...if iget fired or must quit or if my son impoves and this is all forgotten.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-30493138354223331882015-09-06T18:57:00.000-07:002015-09-06T19:03:17.044-07:00The Time I told a Death Row Inmate to F*** off<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ok, my title is a bit of an embellishment, as writers love to do - that is part one of my disclaimer, as the inmate is actually not on death row (but is in prison for life and then some). Second, I'm not disclosing the inmate, not to protect him but just to try and disassociate myself from the story...even though I am telling it...</span></i><br /><br />I knew someone who made national headlines for raping and killing. A friend of mine dated him for a while, and he was part of our group of friends. I had been to his home once, many parties with him there, and we knew each other by name, so I'd say we were acquaintances.<br /><br />Anyways....<br /><br />I recalled, before he even made national headlines, a very vivid experience from high school, overshadowing the nicer memories of him.<br /><br />I always felt this weird feeling in my gut around him, but everyone adored him, so while I knew my feeling was strong and meant <i>something</i>, I just kind of pushed it down and decided not to judge.<br /><br />One day, we were hanging out in the band room and he said "want to play chicken?" I hadn't a clue what it meant but I did not even have time to decide before he put his hand on my knee. Then an inch up my thigh. And another. And another.<br /><br />That feeling that always was in my gut got stronger. I cannot explain it, except, I KNEW that SOMETHING was wrong, very WRONG. I had had boys grab my boobs, still a form of sexual harassment for sure, and hadn't had this <i>feeling</i>. It was this feeling of panic and fear and death and flashing ringing alarms. I felt frozen and speechless, yet, I knew I could not sit still. I grabbed his rather large hand (he was a large, tall, muscular guy plus the whole crazy part; I was maybe 110 lbs) and told him to F*** off (or go the F*** away, something with the F-bomb) and I quickly darted away.<br /><br />Lucky, I darted away with my life, my virginity, my well-being.<br /><br />I mourn for the women he raped and killed, because I only had the most minute touch of what awfulness they experienced, and it was more than enough. Somehow, the funny, docile, big-brother meets-oaf of a guy everyone loved was not such a person and I saw it. I knew it. But I never told. And I feel sad that I hadn't ever told, because I figured he was just a jerk guy and that I was over-reacting. But now I know better.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-39035678140727219912015-07-25T06:55:00.001-07:002015-07-25T06:56:18.862-07:00Maslow Makes MethOh my this will surely give me an interesting feed of search terms which begot this post. Anywho...<br /><br />I was thinking back to a year ago when I had a sort of "aha" moment with my counselor over my childhood, and how I had another "aha" in church a few months ago. About how my family is, well, special.<br /><br />Today I was spying on our heroin-addicted neighbors (Yeah I'm totally gonna be that crazy old lady who peers out her window at them crazy whippersnappers and knows everyone's business and has the cops on speed-dial...) as they conduct another drug transaction, cursing to myself under my breath when I realized, hmm, I can go do the laundry while druggie #1 talks to druggie #2, because drug deals take time.<br /><br />Then I stop in my tracks, dish in hand, and go holy moly, how do I know this crap? I have NEVER done drugs, never will, so how can a little dorky Christian straight-edge mom know this?<br /><br />Because, my stay-at-home dad took me to his "friends" to score weed and, for a while, speed. Is speed meth? I know you snort speed, and I know how long a drug deal lasts, how you do small talk and have to work up to the deal, but I don't know my drugs apparently. &nbsp;I remember going to "Steve's" who had a shiny white car and nice new home (complete with a room just for his cats!), and I would sit and read his 40-year collection of National Geographics and pet his cats- I loved going to his place. Then there was Jim who was Disney's Goofy incarnate, if Goofy was 6 foot tall, 120 pounds, and missing teeth. Then there was the one guy who had a rottweiler named Killer (or something to that matter) who ended up becoming a sweet cuddly puppy dog (he previously had lived up to his name) after I was stuck outdoors for quite some time during a deal, so I made do and chatted it up with Killer and some stray cat living in the roof.<br /><br />So yeah...I was recalling how, sure, I had a family with a mom and dad my "original" mom and dad, and we had a car, my mom had a steady job, we had health insurance, cable (except that one time we stole it and got busted...), clothes (even if from Goodwill)...we had tons of books, went on vacations, owned our home, and my parents told me they loved me all the damned time. Therefore, in my mind, and in their telling me, I met "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs". They had provided me a better life than their own (to which I am actually grateful), did their best, yadda yadda. Even in college, upon reading psychology and child development books, I had a darned good little textbook-happy childhood.<br /><br />Somehow Maslow missed out on the fact that you can have a picture perfect family, but they can have been painted with rotten paints, or some analogy like that. It took me three decades to realize I had some screwed up stuff in my life. Like when I reflect back on childhood and share it with my husband, and am met with a blank, open mouthed, OMG stare...<br /><br />"Was that the year I went to the Grateful Dead Concert? The heat and weed gave me a migraine... no...that happened the following year..."<br /><br />"Yeah the drug dealer had the best danishes in the morning!"<br /><br />"Oh parents pick their kids up at school? My dad parked behind a tree a quarter mile away"<br /><br />"No, my dad was definitely camping, not homeless, he had a tent"<br /><br />"No, I don't like Harley's, they scare me, like when I went for a ride with the biker gang when I was 6"<br /><br />"meth looks all neat lined up on a mirror, &nbsp;and I thought that's why some mirrors had decorative cracks and specks in them"<br /><br />"It was awesome, my mom kept bows and arrows in the trunk of her car and we'd shoot them in the Kmart parking lot"<br /><br />"My missing dress was found, on my mom's one-armed mannequin, Natasha"<br /><br />"The rotting buffalo hide, attracting flies, hung on the fence totally scared the Jehovah's Witnesses away"<br /><br />"Yeah we took a photo with guns, ammo, camo, and food supplies for y2k as our sole family portrait and Christmas card ever made"<br /><br />Stuff like that makes me realize....<br /><br />Well, I dunno what it makes me realize other than, "wow". <a href="http://yeahwrite.me/moonshine/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/moonshine.png"></a>opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-12519061938326101052015-07-22T19:53:00.000-07:002015-07-25T16:15:36.311-07:00The Tale of the Tijuana Tapeworm<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JJQnlhDEevI/VbBTzn-fOiI/AAAAAAAAA8A/l4W2iOHLgeM/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-07-22%2Bat%2B7.38.49%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JJQnlhDEevI/VbBTzn-fOiI/AAAAAAAAA8A/l4W2iOHLgeM/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-07-22%2Bat%2B7.38.49%2BPM.png" width="316" /></a>As my family picked at some spaghetti squash with much speculation and fear, my husband says, "Gotta go to the gym soon. Hmm.... this squash will give us some strange poops!"<br /><br />You know, cause maybe it is an ADD thing but my husband is like .....(see the dog photo to the right), so we can talk about going to the gym and squiggly squash poops all in one breath.<br /><br />Anyways, I am getting ahead of myself.<br /><br />I'm no stranger to food poisoning / parasites like salmonella. They seem to like me.<br /><br />When I was nine, we were at an airport in Puerto Rico and I was hungry, begin my mom for what else but ice cream? I mean, I was nine and we were in the tropics! But my mom is one of those healthy hippies (no, we never had tofu loaf, but we did cook without salt and never were allowed to eat Kraft Mac and Cheese, Hamburger Helper, or really anything processed) and so she put her foot down. No ice cream! Airports aren't exactly havens for health food, so she directed me over to a fried chicken place, better than all that sugar and artificial stuff, right?<br /><br />That night we had arrived to my grandma's home in California and she ordered pizza. Pizza! Grandmas are awesome! I love pizza (loved, at nine, and still love) so I was totally into it. Until the pizza arrived and I lay on the couch moaning in pain. Turned out I had salmonella. I was so sick that I didn't want to open my Christmas presents or birthday presents the next few days!<br /><br />I also got dysentery, aka Montezuma's Revenge, in Tijuana in my early 20s. Those street tacos were the first Mexican cuisine I ever liked, and on a budget, the only food I could afford and I ate tacos like nobody's business. And then I got not the regular old variety of dysentery mind you, but a four month long diarrhea fest. I recall it beginning somewhere near San Diego, me barfing out the side of the car, smearing parasitic taco all over my car and the 5 Freeway. I couldn't keep more than rice or broth down for months, and had to nap after every class to keep up.<br /><br />On my first year marriage anniversary, I lay in bed moaning yet again. I ended up having things come out of both ends at the same time, and got so ill I was in and out of consciousness. MY husband rushed me to ER (I do not recall going, just him picking me up off the bed and suddenly I was in ER, like that transponder thing in Star Trek), hooked up to IVs.<br /><br />A little bit after that bout, I was healthy again and went to the theater to watch a movie with my husband. I had to go to the restroom part way through, and as I went to flush, I gasped. My poo had....something...oh my God.... I ran out at lightning speed, probably white as a ghost, and went into the dark theater and began to pull my husband's arm. "I know this is gross but please. Please come with me to the bathroom" I pleaded, in tears.<br /><br />He followed his sobbing wife into the women's room and into the stall and...<br /><br />"Oh. You had hot and sour soup right before the movie. It's the bamboo shoot. Let's go finish the movie"<br /><br />See? This is why I love my husband, he left a movie, snuck into the women's room, and looked at my poop. What a hero.<br /><br />So flash forward about nine or ten years, to tonight.<br /><br />As we pick at our squash, he says, "remember that poop you had me look at years ago? It was a worm". I pause and ask, "uh....you're joking....?" And he nods no and continues to pick at his meal. I ponder it a bit and repeat myself, "you're joking, right" and he nods no again, rests his fork on his plate, and says, "yeah I didn't want to scare you. I've been to Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, I've seen tapeworms in jars. More than I would have liked to. It was totally a tapeworm. That medicine for that food poisoning must have killed it. It was a good sized one too, man, impressive. Well, I gotta go to the gym, see ya" and he grabbed his keys and left.<br /><br />A. tapeworm. was. inside. me.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-28139615402476528592015-07-13T19:54:00.002-07:002015-07-14T09:15:35.323-07:00When in Oregon....My parents are pot-smoking hippies (they will say they aren't but I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who says they aren't pot smoking hippies), so, they retired and moved to the Pacific North West (Oregon) to join the rest of my mom's hippy family.<br /><br />So my mom, as un-hippy as it is, equates loves to possessions, as that is how she was raised. So, she loves to still take me shopping and out to lunch on her dime, as if I'm ten. But I mean, I cannot complain, she gets warm fuzzies and I get a new shirt or a taco. It's all good I guess.<br /><br />She went to Macy's with my grandma and I guesss they bought me a new wardrobe for me new job. See, I hate shopping, so I haven't bought more than a kids-sized crappy t-shirt or pair of PJs in five years...as a SAHM, why buy nice things? Especially if you hate shopping? Hence, my mom made it her obsessive-compulsive mission to buy me a wardrobe.<br /><br />Except, she is in Oregon and I'm not, and she is a bit skinnier than me so who knows if the clothes she chose a)fit &nbsp;b)look ok... so...instead of wasting money to mail them to me and having me return what I don't need, she is taking photos.<br /><br />Except....<br /><br />She is an "artist" and so she has to use her expensive camera, set at the highest resolution of like a gajillion pixels to take photos of each outfit. In each swapped condition as in, white shirt with blue jeans, white shirt with black skirt, same white shirt with green skirt, add blazer, subtract blazer and add necklace...you get the idea.<br /><br />She refused to let the clothes just "hang n hangers", so she was going to dress up her mannequins.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d72dam3HKgA/VaUfDb1666I/AAAAAAAAA7k/RGdqPIR6yf4/s1600/IMG_4842.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d72dam3HKgA/VaUfDb1666I/AAAAAAAAA7k/RGdqPIR6yf4/s320/IMG_4842.JPG" width="179" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #134f5c;">Her name is Bridget</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>Yes. She has mannequins. Plural. She has a whole creepy room downstairs filled with old dusty paintings rusty metal sculptures, and naked antique mannequins. And they all have <i>names</i>. &nbsp;Her dream is to paint one green, put deer antlers on it, and display it in the yard. My should-be-commuted-crazy dad is probably why there isn't a horned green naked mannequin in the yard, because even in his insanity, he is probably like "hell no, that can't go in the yard, what do we look like, freaks??" (The answer is yes, because you also already have a broken door with Chrismas lights, weird wooden humanistic feathered "effigies" in the yard, etc....)<br /><br />Anyways where was I other than lost in the craziness that is my family? My mom was going to put my new outfits on the mannequins to take photos, but her sister and mom were in town at her mom's cabin, so she ended up with the trunk full of clothing at their place.<br /><br />So they call me tonight, stoned and drunk, asking how to upload photos.<br /><br />"Mom, click the paperclip, select the photo, click send"<br /><br />"Send? How do you send an email?" (I face palm, Mom, you send email all the time!)<br /><br />"you put in my email in the long rectangle box that says to and-"<br />"I give up this is too hard!"<br />"ok mom try Facebook, go to the little talking boxes icon to send me a message"<br /><br />'i don't want it posted all over the internet. Since I didn't have my mannequins, I wore the clothes and posed. I don't want that all over for everyone to see"<br /><br />" mom, the world won't see it in a private message."<br /><br />"Forget it, I'm spending $40 to have staples upload them and email them"<br /><br />"But you can't waste money to mail them to me?"<br /><br />"just...we are fried. We tried for an hour to email you. We are done"<br /><br />No mom, You guys were too high and drunk to figure out email. And don't tell me this digital native crap. I didn't have a remote control TV until 1997, we had a circly-spinny-rotary dial phone until 1992, and all our lighting was circa 1950 and before. I am digitally stuck in 1965, mom....<br /><br />When in Oregon....<br /><br />Get high with your hippy sister, paint your mannequins, and get confused how to send an email.<br /><br />sigh. I couldn't make this up if I tried.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-954254398126001912015-07-09T10:43:00.002-07:002015-07-09T13:29:29.799-07:00Dating for an introvertI'm a total introvert, as in, the Myers-Briggs test is 100% "I" for " Introvert" for me, and to think I've come out of my shell.<br /><br />Come out of my shell....I have many report cards from childhood which dote on my intellect and sweet personality, but how I <i>need to come out of my shell</i>. It's nice in there, dammit!<br /><br />I was so shy that I was seen as cold and reticent my freshman year of college... you know, college speak for bitch. Before college, I was also so very shy that I did not even get my first kiss until 17.<br /><br />Do all introverts have a short list of dating partners? Cause I do. I still have never (and since I am married, never will...) been on just a date, you know, cute Billy asks you out and you go on a date and eat at Applebees, or Jill sets you up with her cousin Jay and you go out for coffee, or whatever. I've never been on a flippant type date or "dated" someone causally for say, two "dates". Never.<br /><br />I date long-term. Kinda with the intent to marry, but then don't we crazy women all kinda have that thought? Remember writing your name, in a heart, in fancy handwriting, with your new last name (that cute boy in third period who doesn't know you exist, but Lilly Haversham sounds so much fancier than your current name of Lilly McSnuffles). But my intent to marry was more fatalist, as in, I'm so invisible to men that this guy is it, it is him or being a crazy old maid forever.<br /><br />So I dated a Canadian for over a year, no actual set in place plans to marry, but we were steady and serious and I just <i>knew </i>that even though he wasn't physically attractive and refused to move to the USA and was a total stoner, it was as good as it gets, so be it.<br /><br />Then there was the totally awesome fun....umm....wait...no...manic depressive alcoholic who showed his very bad side once I was already entranced in the love net. But hey, chances for love are so seldom, gotta stick with it, right? Until I realized after hitting rock bottom too many times that this was a codependent relationship from hell.<br /><br />So I signed off relationships all together, old maid I would be, some idyllic nomad, a free-lance National Geographic cultural anthropologist. Screw it.<br /><br />I mean, it is so hard to find a date, long term or short. Sure it seems easy, flirt with opposite sex (or same, hey we are progressive, more on that in a moment) and date. But for an introvert (add in some anxiety disorder, too) and it is like this huge maelstrom of hell, of what ifs, second guessing, conversations in your head that you plan out and never execute.<br /><br />So in my new found "freedom", and a car, I travelled the local area just....being. I was a poor college kid with nowhere to go, on purpose.<br /><br />One day, the lesbian couple who ended up in the non-super-hippy dormitory as my dorm neighbors for a week, showed up at my door looking like deer in headlights, teary eyed, "the college screwed up and put us here, we are scared", as if I had a solution. I told them it would be fine, and hey, since my roommate was not here yet and I knew their room had a bed with bedsprings poking out (It was my room the prior year), they could switch it for the better bed of my missing roommate (who was holed up in a hospital, addicted to vicodin, after she got in a car accident on the way to Coachella, back when it was an underground rave destination).<br /><br />So the college figured it all out, and the couple moved to the hippy dorm and my druggie roommate got the pokey bed. Later on, one of the lesbians said hey want to go to an art exhibit with us and some friends? I'm an art nerd, and when I heard where it was, I was all in.<br /><br />The art exhibit was at this coffee shop about 30 minutes away that I had gone to once in high school, when my mom had to go to County Records down the road and I decided to wander downtown instead. It had artisan coffees, French pastries, a little coffee shop library, cushy chairs, and an art gallery. I was in love. It was just like my favorite city, Portland, Oregon, inside....a place for modern beatniks and weirdos, intellectuals and foodies to kick back and relax. &nbsp;So when I was invited to go back I was like yes please!<br /><br />So a group of college kids and I toured the basement gallery, I got inspired, and then we had some coffee and pastries. And then....one of the girls in the "couple" said hey, that girl over there is checking you out. The lesbian-I-sorta-knew's partner began to side-eye me like I was trash.<br /><br />That's when I realized holy moly, &nbsp;this was a gay coffee bar (hey I; was from a small town I was sheltered and naive) and the one girl was both trying to set me up with a date <i>and </i>flirting with <i>me. </i>Talk about awkward, and, man, I couldn't get a man to even look my way (unless he was a toothless senior citizen pappy or transgender Filipino, the only kinds that seemed to like me) but here I was with two lesbians crushing on me. Whoa. So I had to politely decline, and soon as I finished my coffee (hello, it was delicious!) I got the heck out of there. Looking back, it was such a <i>Portlandia </i>episode.<br /><br />Back to dating....so..I was going to be an old maid. I even signed up to teach English in Japan, to just jump head-first into a nomadic old maid lifestyle (and be able to afford it). Meanwhile, I had a group of college friends who kept my mind off my fatalistic nomadic adventures, friends to just hang out with, guys, gals, whatever. Even a guy friend who was best friends with one of my best male friends from high school. This friend of a friend had good beer and even occasionally tossed fast food my way; not my food of choice but when you live off of $20 a week, you take any food you can get.<br /><br />So one sunny day, I drove to L.A. to finish up my paperwork to teach in Japan. I got lost in downtown (101,110, I-10 all different directions can play hell on you if a)you're a bit dyslexic b) from a town without even a stoplight) &nbsp;...I barely made it. But I did. After my meeting, all that was left was a recommendation letter and physicians form, and they would send me my info on where I would teach and one last final signature would send me on my way. But something held me back. &nbsp;Partially, the anxiety-ridden what ifs, I mean, Japan has volcanos and earthquakes! Partially, this <i>je ne sais quois </i>that held me back. &nbsp;In my fatalistic darkness, there was this kind of warm but faint little pull, nearly indiscernible, that glimmered hope and happiness yet I couldn't put my finger on it.<br /><br />So, I stayed. I never signed that last form. And I kind of sat back and waited, for what, I did not know.<br /><br />A few months later, I found myself trying to avoid dating that friend of a friend, because, I was <i>done </i>with people. &nbsp;But that little warm fuzzy pull kept getting stronger and suddenly...<br /><br />...well, a few months after that, I started dating that friend of a friend.<br /><br />And now we have been married almost eleven years.<br /><br />And I'm not settling.<br /><br />But I still do have a nomadic spirit. I even wonder sometimes, as I peruse random Google Street View places in my spare time (it's travel for free!) I try and guess where in Japan I would have ended up and where my life would've taken me. I've even entertained the idea of writing a book about it, except I have been writing a different book for 6 years and counting.<br /><br /><br />opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-43124140916189157322015-07-08T16:26:00.001-07:002015-07-08T16:26:19.961-07:00Creamy Dijon Chive ChickenLiving in a small town with just a pizza place, burger place, Mc Donalds, and Subway (with any other food 30+ minutes away) means I can't really just "grab a bite to eat" with my lovely old gluten intolerance. Choosing a boxed meal or "semi homemade" kind of meal isn't easy. Even just chewing a recipe online isn't that simple, especially when many gluten free recipes call for amaranth flour and anthem gum, expensive ingredients that don't exactly exist in my grocery store (which doesn't even have a single Indian-Subcontinent type of food, isn't that crazy???)<br /><br />Anyways where was I? Oh yes. It is hard to have a restricted diet in the middle of nowhere. Add in my broken foot and sprained ankle and two kids under 5 to chase around and...I wasn't exactly being a culinary queen. I managed to <i>lose</i> weight just sitting on my ass eating potato chips while everything healed.<br /><br />Finally, I'm mostly healed! Unable to drive yet....but...able to stand, hobble around, and COOK!<br /><br />So I found a recipe online that looked really good except it had drasted wheat flour, and chicken broth (which is usually gluten free, but I realized I didn't have any on hand anyways). Nevertheless, I went for it, minus two ingredients, and was very pleased with the results. I would certainly make it again and if it were served in a restaurant, I'd "yelp" about it. Here goes....and...I do believe a little chicken broth or that better than bouillon stuff would make it better, but it wasn't lacking without.<br /><br />4 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;chicken breasts or thighs, or a few more of those scrawny tenderloins (whatever you have on hand)<br />3-4 &nbsp; tbsp olive oil (I love kalamata oil)<br />1 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;tbsp butter<br />1/4 &nbsp; &nbsp; cup white wine<br />?? &nbsp; chives.... I used probably 5 or six chive strands? chopped,<br />pinch &nbsp; salt and pepper to taste<br />splash of chicken broth, optional<br />2 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;diced scallions or, in a pinch, half a small red onion<br />1/3 c &nbsp; &nbsp;sour cream (i usually loathe "light" things but prefer light sour cream. non-light yogurt would be even better!<br />1 tea &nbsp;dijon mustard (I use Trader Joes garlic aioli mustard, it is even better than dijon imho)<br /><br />warm a large saucepan and season your chicken, add some of the oil to pan, sauté chicken until golden. Remove from pan.<br /><br />Add more oil and sauté the scallions/onions until translucent.<br /><br />Deglaze pan with wine and add the chicken (splash of broth if you have it) and add chicken back in. Cover, cook 5-10 minutes until sauce reduces and chicken is fully cooked if not already.<br /><br />Mix sour cream and mustard in a bowl, use a spoon to spoon in a tbsp of the cooking chicken-sauce stuff into the sour cream mixture ti temper it. Mix. Add in the cream sauce into the pan. Stir, simmer a few minutes until mixed and warmed. Sprinkle on your chives.<br /><br />Serve immediately<br /><br />I like it over mashed potatoes, with a side of green beans or peas.<br /><br />opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-86008154768246509982015-07-08T08:25:00.000-07:002015-07-08T08:25:01.300-07:00Mountain FolkEver wonder why people move to small towns in the middle of nowhere?<div><br /></div><div>My parents moved to Running Springs to &nbsp; &nbsp;a) escape society &nbsp; b) commune with nature</div><div>And so, I grew up there in a quaint little cabin nestled among the peacocks. Yes, my parents had peacocks, owls, alligators, skunks, basically any "pet" you could think of, due to loose county ordinances and the whole rebel-to-society-meets-hippy-communing-with-nature-meets-crazy-recluse thing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I grew up in a small town of about 5,000 people at 6,000 feet above the smoggy, crowded, urban sprawl of the Inland Empire and Los Angeles. Going "down the hill" to the city was something to be avoided at all costs, put off until a medical specialist appointment was imminent, or if we needed some odd contraption from Home Depot to use to control the wolves- pet wolves.</div><div><br /></div><div>A small mountain town such as mine truly shaped me as who I am today. Sure, we weren't living in one of those small, fly-in only towns in bush Alaska, but to your normal Angelino used to three Starbucks, seven ethnic restaurants, two Gaps, and seventeen fast food joints in sight, and concrete jungles abound, my town was pretty "hick" and remote. I mean, to see a doctor, buy clothes or toys, buy or register a car, basically do anything, you have to drive thirty minutes to an hour to do it, all the way down a winding road to the city. We get bears in the garbage, mountain lions in the yard, and six-foot-deep snowstorms with 115 mph winds, and this is "normal". My husband and I just laughed as we passed movie star Ron Perlman on his way to the posh grocer's; we role=played my husband on a conference call, "yeah, executive co-workers, Ron and I hate how slow Richard Dreyfuss drives on the way up the mountain, yes, Rom Perlman and Rich- crap- gotta go there's a mountain lion outside my window <i>and </i>I smell smoke".</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, our little mountain burns down. A lot. Slide fire, Old Fire, nameless fires that evacuated my family in the 80's and 90's.... living among drought-ridden timber and a bunch of crazed people nearby spells disaster. As you watch the news coverage from afar, seeing familiar places burn, you shed some tears as your lovely forest and town turn to ash.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, you return. We say, if you survive a year up here, you will never leave. The mountain either scares you away in moments...I mean, OMG everything is so far away! You have to learn to cook and start a fire and shovel snow! You should own a weapon in case of wildlife attack or because there are at most six sheriffs for 135 square miles, with a holiday-vistors plus regular-resident population swelling up over 85,000 people! You have to deal with rock slides and very very dense fog and huge snowstorms and crazy fast Santa Ana Winds! And there's only one Starbucks and no malls whatsoever!!!!</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, you return to the idyllic towering pines and quiet solitude. Some people even commute two to three hours each way to the city just to come home here. And as much as I hated begin a teen up here (I was the OMG no starbucks or mall? type girl sometimes), I came back.</div><div><br /></div><div><div align="center"><a href="http://www.amandamoments.com/category/tell-me-about-your-town-2/ " title="Amanda Moments"><img src="http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g167/PineappleHead87/amandamomentstown_zpsqrwhmxbr.jpg" alt="Amanda Moments" style="border:none;" /></a></div>I came back to raise my boys right. I want them to see that mom can shovel snow, garden, hike, fish, and rough out a storm. I want my boys to climb trees instead of climbing overpasses to graffiti them. I want a quiet, close-knit small town environment, filled with nature and solitude. And so, I returned.</div>opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-26264697876137071392015-06-23T10:47:00.000-07:002015-06-23T10:47:01.620-07:00Cervical LEEP and Broken Foot part twoJust a brief follow up post.... <br /><br />It has been what, 3 or 4 weeks since my LEEP? Three I think, Anyways; I barely bled at all afterwards. Then tmi (but this whole topic is tmi), I shed some weird skin looking thing which put me in a panic, but it is just from the iron stuff they used to seal my wound and stop excess bleeding. Some people lose it in a giant creepy chunk like I did. Then, &nbsp;I got my period. Then, no issues for two days and now, not heavy bleeding as in oh my gosh call the doctor bleeding, but it is fresh blood and at the level of blood a period would be at, so it if lasts more than a few days or pain accompanies it, I will go to the doctor, as my doctor said don't worry unless there are clots and the like. So I am hoping all is well, even if I have a bit of panic!<br /><br />Then, my broken foot and sprained ankle.....it has been 4 weeks and I thought I could at least bear weight on it since I have a weight bearing/walkable Cam Boot cast thingy. Nope. I tried to bear weight just for a moment so I could step in the shower (I am sick of not begin able to even bathe/shower on my own!) and OUCH. The pain in my ankle, well, there wasn't any but my whole foot, even my heel, had pain. The pain was at the level which mirrors the pain of a I-just-a-second-ago-sprained-my-anke level pain, pain which I know well since I have sprained my ankle four times. Apparently it is a family thing, my cousin sprained her ankle six or eight times! So yeah....<br /><br />The doctor said oh bear weight on it when you can, walk on it when you can, see you in six weeks. That made it seem like I'd be bearing weight and walking on it, given his advice and the walkable boot I am wearing. And I'm no pain wimp, having given birth without any painkillers, having had my head sewn shut (13 stitches) without anesthesia as a child, having not gone to the doctors until 12 hours after breaking my foot and not taking any prescription pain killers.... I'm not a pain wimp and just bearing weight HURTS.<br /><br />I am disappointed in my healing time for all my issues and its getting the best of me.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-25451599226387215282015-06-05T15:03:00.001-07:002015-06-05T17:55:59.492-07:00cervical LEEP surgeryI searched in vain for people's experiences with the cervical LEEP procedure, but all were too vague or clinical. So, here is my experience but each woman's experience is her own and can differ from mine.<br /><br /><a href=”http://yeahwrite.me/moonshine/”><img src=”http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/moonshine.png” alt=”” /></a><br /><a href=”http://yeahwrite.me/moonshine/”><img src=”http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/moonshine.png” alt=”” /></a>I was diagnosed with HPV 16 a few months ago per an abnormal pap. Women, PLEASE GO GET YOUR PAPS REGULARLY, I cannot stress that enough. Had I not dragged myself to my Gynecologist, things could have turned much much worse.<br /><br />My HPV is HPV 16, one of the two kinds most responsible for cancer, and is aggressive. I had a cone biopsy and it came back as CIV3, the worst of the worst of cervical abnormalities one can get without actually having cancer. So I felt relieved yet kinda worried, like, eek I have the worst case! Thank God I did get that pap when I did.<br /><br />So I got scheduled for a LEEP procedure. I am truly the biggest medical procedure wimp and was honestly very nervous and scared.<br /><br />I went in and layed on the pap type table with stirrups, undressed from the waist down, with a little courtesy sheet to, for me, shield my view of stuff.<br /><br />They inserted the speculum or whatever it is, the one for this procedue is larger than the one for a PAP so it is not exactly painful but rather awkward and uncomfortable. Then they did that click click click bumpy thing they do in a pap but it was more clicky and lasted longer and verged on kinda painful. Then I got a shot in the cervix.<br /><br />...actually 4 shots of anasthesia, and I felt all 4. Its a dental type needle so it feels like a dental anasthesia needle and usually you only feel one, not four, lucky me. The 4th one was the twingy-est and i gritted my teeth.<br /><br />It anesthisised my cervix but the rest of the vagina was not anesthised. So you feel the speculum and the insertion of tools, none of which hurts but it just reminds you of what' going on inside, so it is hard to ignore. But luckily you dont feel the actual chop chop of your lady bits.<br /><br />Bring an ipod. Well even then you HEAR everything but it is at least kinda dulled by your ipod music. Oh did I tell you, you get a giant silver bandage to ground you so you don't get electricuted?<br /><br />The doctor uses a vacuum, I guess because there is smoke or fumes from the procedure. I am not certain, as I didn't ask because fumes and smoke from my vagina was far too freaky for me to think about. The vacuum is as loud as a carpet cleaner, but for me was strangely good. It was white noise I could zone out on.<br /><br />After the anesthisizing, I was shaking like mad. As said, I am such a wimp. I was pale, my blood pressure skyrocked, my breath got shallow. The doctor suggested I could try full anasthesia, it was an option but meant longer procedure and recovery, but I get panic attacks from it so I declined. My doctor taught me relaxation techniques, rest your hand on your navel and breathe in 4 seconds, so you feel your hand rise. Breathe out 4 seconds to feel your hand fall. Repeat. Vacate your mind.<br /><br />So back to the procedure, I felt tools and hands and maybe the microscope go in and out and around....some iodine and alcohol and water to cleanse me....and then a high pitched squeeeeeeeee. I did my best to convince myself the squeeeeee was part of the Pink Floyd song on my ipod, because I did not wish to think hey thats some tool chopping off my cervix, squeeeee, just like the band saw I used in metal shop in 7th grade.<br /><br /><br /><br />Each time the vacuum shut off, my shaking returned cause I was like, omg did they just turn off the vacuum because they just accidentally chopped off my labia? Am I bleeding to death? Did they remove the wrong thing? Am I dead? But no. It was just normal procedure.<br /><br />The surgery seemed to last forever due to my nervousness, but once it was over I was like, its over? Already?<br /><br />All the nurses kept asking me, are you ok? I guess my super nervousness made them worry. I must have looked like I saw a ghost. Apparently, I really was a nervous freakazoid.<br /><br />I have a follow up appointment in 4 weeks, and am told I can have pain, like menstrual cramps, for a few days or so. I can take tylenol or advil and get stronger stuff if I call the doctor.<br /><br />Afterwards, I had some pain but not cervical pain. The un-numb parts of my lady bits hurt. It feels like, well, like I had a giant, wide, metallic device shoved up me for a half an hour withojt lubrication because that is exactly what happened. To add to things, due to a broken foot, I cannot shower on my own and decided to use a diaper wipe to clean down there for a few days and wowza. I got a mild chemical burn so my exterior lady bits hurt. The doctor said to put coconut oil on a soft towel and dab the affected areas so hey...even if you did not wish to know about my chemical burn, now you know how to treat one if you get one. See? I am all about passing on knowledge, &nbsp;a true teacher at heart.<br /><br />I can have on and off heavy bleeding for up to four weeks! And strange colored discharge (mostly blood and iodine), and to only freak if I have clots come out. No sex, tampons, or heavy lifting for 4 weeks because, as the nurse said, "basically you have a gaping wound". Gaping wound, doesn't that sound lovely?<br /><br />I am quite tuckered out today, not need-a-nap tired, but ran-a-marathon tired, where my body and mind just want to slip away into another less sore and tuckered out existance. No one told me I would feel like just laying in bed doing nothing afterwards. Maybe having the broken foot and sprained ankle is just compounding the issue. Maybe it is that I somehow lost 6 lbs since my foot injuries, and so my body needs more calories since calories are energy? Who knows but I am dog tired. I wish I could get myself into my jacuzzi! opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3986768514143017523.post-8719625476512366672015-06-02T10:45:00.002-07:002015-06-02T10:45:49.299-07:00go ask aliceAs her head hit the pillow and her eyes shut, there was a rumble outside but it did not disturb her as she drifted to sleep.<br /><br />The harleys quieted, and the guests stumbed inside, the meth layed out, divided, snorted, almost to the beat of the Rolling Stones from a tinny single-speakered record player.<br /><br />Awoken by the commotion of a late night party, the little girl looked over the landing, a birds-eye view of drugs, mirrors, beer bottles, and crowds of bikers cavorting. She liked the music playing; the Doors, and she hummed "when the music's over, turn out the lights". She was awake, bored, and decided to tiptoe down to the busy living room to look for some toys.<br /><br />At the turn of the stairs, she could see her parents, back turned, and then a sudden rush of the crowd towards the door, screams of "shit!" And "no!" Echoed up the staircase.<br /><br />Her parents ran out, oblivious of her, and she began to step off the last steps as she saw a woman approach. Red and blue lights reflected off the wall, red, blue, red, blue, mesmorizing her. She felt like she could get lost in the sparkling lights, but the woman smiled, bringing the girl out of her daze. The woman had long brown hair and a 1970s style rusty-yellowy sweater, and she sat down on the step, beckonjng the girl to her lap. The woman felt warm, safe, motherly, and the usually shy girl sought the woman's comfort. The woman grabbed a toy, an Etch-a-sketch, and the two began drawing geometric patterns. The chaos seemed to drown away, the flashing colored lights were no longer of interest, just the sense of love and security, the joy that an adult had taken time to sit down and play, almost child-like, filled the girl with a memorable warmth and peace.<br /><br />Many years later, the girl asked her parents about that night. They swore she stayed asleep in bed and that unfortunately someone overdosed at the party and an ambulance showed up, but that her memory of the party and the lights must hsve been something she overheard, a manufactured memory. And the woman? Her parents both swore there wasn't even a single brunette woman there, let alone one im a sweater. Another manufactured memory.<br /><br />That is, until the now-grown girl flipped through a dusty shoebox at her grandma's; photos stashed away of grandma's ex husband, that pig. Mixed into photos of the hated ex was a photo of a woman, it was black and white and dated to 1930. Aside from the curled up-do and tailored dress, and obvious lack of coloring, the now-grown girl gasped and with a shaky hand, flipped over the photo. "Alice" it said.<br /><br />Alice.<br /><br />Her great grandmother who passed away decades ago.<br /><br />Alice.<br /><br />Alice had comforted her that scary night.<br /><br />It was definitely Alice, with a different hairstyle and outfit, but the likeliness was unmistakable.<br /><br />Alice, Alice the angel, sent to comfort and protect her great grand-daughter, a relstive she had never met since she had passed away years before, but a girl she knew she needed to protect.<br /><br />A girl who, relatives say, reminds them a lot of Alice.opinion8dhermithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15093100869650698978noreply@blogger.com0